Drama about male violence, Up? Director Xavier Legrand’s first film, Ala garde (Custia, Brazil), was recognized on February 22 as the best film of the 44th edition of the French Film Caesars, a result that does not surprise us.
At least for me, this film arrived unannounced and gave a reality shock showing genius in addressing a topic that takes on little social importance.
- Does the director place us as spectators in a room where the details of shared custody are agreed?And we couldn’t leave our eyes off the screen until the end.
We’ve found that monsters exist and are sometimes part of families, they’re not in dreary, isolated night spots, monsters can be very close, and weigh even more.
The story is presented by the judge handling the divorce case and custody of the couple’s children, it is difficult to have a complete view of the case, although some of its most important elements seem obvious, such as the violence of the father against the mother. .
It is from there that everything is beginning to seem more diffuse and that justice seems to be wrong. There should be no doubt about such important issues as whether or not it is appropriate to force a child to spend time with his mother’s abuser.
Miriam’s lawyer describes a particularly possessive and violent man, while Antoine’s lawyer denies this description and argues that it is abnormal for Miriam to want to prevent Antoine from showing love for her children.
In the room, there is a statement report from a child asking not to be with their father. Meanwhile, the magistrate observes how both parents attempt to detect any anomaly or any decisive gestures of their verdict, doubting their future decision.
For the mother’s lawyer, it is difficult to find clear evidence of the true character of the father, an abuser knows how to adapt his behavior in relation to his interests in a given situation, so the veil on the true personality of his protagonists will not be lifted until later in the film.
From the court decision establishing shared custody it is guessed that a disaster is taking place, a slow explosion of violence, repression and discomfort runs through the screen through Thomas Gioria’s masterful portray of Julien, the family’s son.
From the first moment the father (Denis Menochet) takes his guard, there is a climate of latent tension. A close-up of the frightened child’s face; a silent dialogue capable of making them nervous and conveying a sense of suffocation.
The child’s gaze and expressions say what is lived, what it feels like, the absence of music makes the sounds of everyday life sound like threats, a key to opening the door, the sound that arouses fear in many battered women.
We realize that we are not dealing with a case of parental alienation, a diagnostic label of dubious scientific basis, the perverted narcissist Antoine sometimes knows how to show himself as an misunderstood being who could almost be a victim, a victim because he loves his family. .
No one in the family believes in this role that the father plays, they know that any approach is not a repentance, but a closer approach to the control they want to regain. The great strength of this film lies above all in the form of the director. Xavier Legrand, takes our breath away using a mixture of fear and hope that is somewhat perverse.
We feel a high-voltage scene as the culmination of all the tension and frustration of the father, a father who cannot get joint custody to bring him back to his frightened wife, who lives in hiding and lying to avoid any form of aggression.
The father’s strategy of approaching his wife, Miriam (Léa Drucker), bullying his son, seems to fail, we already know that frustration is a component to consider as a precursor to anger and violence.
That’s when we start listening to a bell, a constant sound that makes us hold our breath. We return to the cold chamber where the guard is installed. We don’t know exactly how the abuse case happened, but we have the intuition that there were many unresolved situations there.
The course of history anticipates disaster. He only deserves the adjective of devastating. The protagonist clings to the possibility that this?Phone? She knows she’s there, she knows she’s going to play for a long time. He feels like he’s leaving.
However, the sound ends and others begin, showing that this time Antoine does not want to stop. The last scene of this film is terrible, with no special effects or gloomy makeup. The protagonist no longer resembles a human being, only a beast blinded by pride and vengeance.
The reality is so great that empathy for this mother and her son hurts. We are the neighbor who warns of what is going on, the policeman who answers the call trying to use all their knowledge.
We have discovered that monsters exist and are sometimes part of a family, monsters can have the same surname as us and weigh even more, you can’t fight cognitive behavioral therapies, it will come later.
Monsters are battled with the power of education, the flight of empathy, the shield of solidarity, the bars of justice and the application of an intervention.